Steps to Hymn Writing:
A Mostly Mythical Story, Plus Comments

Whatever Parley P. Pratt may actually have been thinking when he wrote “The Morning Breaks; the Shadows Flee,” he followed certain principles and conventions that resulted in a first-rate hymn text. These comments describe some of those principles.

Parley P. Pratt was the first editor of the Millennial Star as well as a member of the original Quorum of the Twelve. This account of Elder Pratt’s creative process is pure hypothesis, and no doubt the thoughts that we imagine here are far too simpleminded. But we don’t think Elder Pratt would object to our little game, especially if it can serve to help and encourage our aspiring hymn writers.

In the spring of 1840, Parley P. Pratt was in England, busy working as a missionary and an editor. Several of the Twelve had traveled together to England for what was to be an exciting period of missionary work. As Elder Pratt looked out his window at some beautiful spring blossoms, he felt overwhelmed by a sense of prophetic vision: the light of the gospel was destined to spread someday through all the world, and his was the joyous privilege of being one of the first to know of the Restoration and be called to spread its message. His thoughts may have been similar to these:

“How, but how, can I share with my brothers and sisters the great happiness I feel? When I think that one day the light of the gospel will shine in all corners of the earth, I want to jump and shout. But I’m a poet and a writer, and I know that if I want to express this joy in a meaningful way, I can’t just jump and shout. I have to work with these thoughts; I must give them dignified, significant, artistic form, and that’s a painstaking process.¹

“What I would really like to do is to write a hymn expressing what the gospel will mean to the world. I like the metaphor of the ‘light’ of the gospel. Let’s see, maybe I could compare the gospel to a lamp or a candle. No! If it’s going to spread over the whole world, then it’s more like the rising sun. How about this:

“Well … hm … I’m afraid that it doesn’t take me long to see some problems here. For one thing the second line has already strayed away from my central idea. I have to make up my mind: am I describing the dawn of the gospel, or am I praying to be a better person?² The first line is my real subject, so the second will have to go. That line had a built-in problem anyway: I need to decide whether the hymn will be personal and subjective (‘I’) or whether it will reflect the feelings of a whole group (‘we’).³

“And if I’m honest with myself, the first line doesn’t really pass inspection either. ‘There’s’ and ‘far away’ are really just filler words; they don’t carry their share of meaning. Overall, it’s a weak line. It doesn’t state my subject forcefully, and it certainly would not make a good, strong hymn title. And besides, the meter sort of waltzes along. It’s a triple meter, like a lot of nursery rhymes, not very worshipful or dignified.⁴

“So I guess I start over. But I’m not discouraged! I’ve written hymns before, and I know how difficult it is. For a more suitable meter, I think I’ll follow the pattern of one of my favorite hymns:

“That’s certainly a stately and dignified meter—eight syllables in each line. Well, better luck this time. Here goes:

“Well, frankly, I still have my doubts. That meter is solid and dignified, and the first two lines state my central idea. But it still doesn’t really work. It doesn’t move toward anything; the lines could be in just about any order, because the meaning doesn’t build. And in spite of my metaphor of light and darkness, it still doesn’t seem like a hymn. I’ve achieved a dignified meter, but some of the words are not dignified. ‘It’s’ is so informal that it probably doesn’t belong in a hymn, and ‘succor’ is so stiff that I should probably avoid it if I can.⁵

“The ‘dawn’ comparison doesn’t give freshness all by itself. What would happen if I were much more direct? ‘The morning is breaking, the shadows are fleeing.’ Oh, no! Triple meter back to haunt me. But wait …

“At last I have something that really might work! But to start with, I know I have to fix ‘radiant,’ because a hymn has to maintain a perfectly consistent metrical pattern so that each stanza of the text can continue to match the same tune.⁶ ‘Radiant’ won’t work because I need an unstressed syllable and then a stressed one, and ‘radiant’ is just the opposite. What other word could describe the gospel dawn? ‘Glorious’? No, that still begins with a stress. The line is missing an initial unstressed syllable. How about ‘All glorious rises on the world’? No, because ‘all’ is just another filler word. ‘Majestic’—that’s it! Now I have the eight syllables I need, and the stresses come in the right place.

“Now all I need is a good second line. I need a rhyme with ‘world.’⁷ Let’s see—I can’t think of how I could fit in the idea of anything that would be curled or pearled or whirled. How about ‘hurled’? ‘The beams of morn from heav’n are hurled.’ Well, that line fits the meaning of the rest of the stanza, but for one thing, ‘hurled’ is a little violent in this context. And although many hymns require ‘heav’n’ to be sung on one syllable, that’s really quite hard to sing. The only other rhyme I can think of is ‘furled.’ Furled … furled … How about the image of the flag of Zion being raised in the light of dawn? I like that! So here it is: